In March and April of each year, the deer's fully calcified antlers will fall off on their own, and the sika deer will not feel any pain when they fall off. Soon after shedding, sika deer will grow new antler velvet, which grows very fast, and can grow at a rate of 1.2 cm per day.
Generally experienced farmers will harvest deer antler velvet around the 60th day of deer antler growth, at this time the antler velvet has only two bars, so it is called two bars of deer antler velvet. At this time, the harvested deer antler velvet quality is the best, the most nutritious, if the deer antler is harvested a few days later, then the antler velvet will develop into 3 forks, also known as three bars of deer antler velvet, at this time the quality of the antler will decline.
Sika deer have very little guts, and it is difficult for humans to get close to them, and they need to use mouth blowing anesthetics to make them incapacitated. However, be careful not to let the anesthetic injection hit their stomachs to avoid the danger of intestinal perforation.
When the anesthetic exerts anesthetic effect, people will tie the rope under the base of the deer antler two fingers wide to stop the bleeding, and then use a saw to directly saw off the antler.
At this time, the antler velvet has not yet been calcified, so it is soft and easy to saw off. However, at this time, the deer antler blood vessels are abundant, and the blood in the antler will also flow while sawing down, in order to reduce the loss of nutrients from the antler velvet, people will generally place the antler upside down.
After the antler velvet is taken, people will rub it with herbal powder on the place where the antler velvet is taken, and then the anesthesia will be lifted. The survival ability of sika deer is very strong, and it can generally be fully recovered in 2-3 days.
Although in the eyes of humans, taking deer antler velvet is more bloody, in fact, taking away deer antler velvet will not affect their survival, but is conducive to their survival.
Darwin once pondered a problem: the male peacock's tail, although gorgeous, is useless, but it will expose his whereabouts and make it easier for predators to find themselves. If so, why should the male peacock continue to maintain a gorgeous tail?
The reason is most likely related to the sexual selection of female peacocks. In the view of the female peacock, although the male peacock has a tail that is easily exposed to the eyes of the enemy, it can survive safely until now, which must be that it has a unique survival advantage, and the side also shows that its genes are good. The female peacock also wants her children to get better genes, so she will choose a male peacock with a bright tail. Conversely, male peacocks with dull feathers are able to avoid predators, but they are unable to gain the favor of females, so their genes cannot be passed on to their offspring.
For sika deer, antlers are also such an ostentatious presence. Scientists once found an extinct creature "bighorn deer" in Ireland, the largest horn of the bighorn deer can reach 3.65 meters wide and weigh 90 pounds, such a huge horn not only can not improve their survival rate, but also make them run slowly. There are also antlers that require a lot of calcium to maintain, so that most bighorn deer have osteoporosis.
Antlers are a burden for bighorn deer, but they must bear such a burden to gain the favor of females.
For sika deer, antlers are also a burdensome presence. Although the larger the antlers of the male, the more chances of getting mating. But if the antlers are large enough, the antlers will have a detrimental effect on the sika deer.
The first is to affect the feeding of sika deer, and every time they look up or look down, the larger antlers will make them pay more energy than usual. Also, when escaping, huge antlers can also become a burden on them, and the antlers are easily hung by branches.
More importantly, when competing with the same sex for mating rights, although deer will use their antlers to compete for the favor of females, in the process of competition, many deer will die because their antlers are entangled with each other.
In the past, antlers were thought to be conspicuous tools for deer and weapons to gain the liking of the opposite sex. But now some scientists believe that antlers also help them survive.
Researchers at Yellowstone found that if male elk had no horns, they would be attacked by wolves more often. Researchers have observed for 10 years that if there are no horned individuals in the group, the population is attacked by wolves 3.5 times more often than there are antlers.
And, if antlers are just conspicuous tools, they can fall off after the estrus period, which saves most of the energy. But this is not the case, and the antlers do not fall off until March of the following year, many months before the estrus period.
In this regard, the researchers believe that although the antlers are more like-of-the-same competition, as well as female sexual selection, it can also help males resist predators and can improve their survival rate, so this function is passed down from generation to generation.
However, they can survive in the wild without antlers, because females do not have antlers, and they can survive better. Nowadays, wolves are sparse in most areas, and deer live in a safer environment, especially on farms, even if there are no antlers, the impact on them is not large.
The only thing affected is sexual choice during mating, but many farms now have specific deer mated when raising deer in order to leave better offspring.